Many people work in all kinds of dangerous jobs where they risk being harmed each day. Even those who work in relatively safe conditions could still experience an injury that prevents them from working.
If you were injured on the job, you could learn more about your legal options by consulting a Lima workers’ compensation lawyer. An experienced personal injury attorney may be able to help you avoid unnecessary stress and missed legal opportunities.
Common Workplace Injuries That May Justify a Workers’ Comp Claim
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the four most common grounds for Dasy Away from Work, Job Restriction, or Transfer (DART) cases—the term used by the BLS to refer to on-the-job injuries which affect working capacity in some way—are as follows:
- Overexertion and bodily reaction injuries, with just over 1,000,000 DART cases,
- Contact with objects and equipment, with just over 780,000 DART cases,
- Slips, trips, and falls, with nearly 675,000 DART cases, and
- Exposure to harmful substances or environments, with a little under 660,000 DART cases
Overexertion injuries include things like pulled muscles, strained tendons, and slipped discs caused by trying to lift, pull, push, turn, or carry something that is too heavy, or trying to do those things without the proper form to avoid injury. Importantly, it also includes chronic conditions that build up over time due to repetitive motion and stress, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and even certain forms of arthritis.
Contact with objects and equipment broadly refers to situations in which workers are struck by something heavy falling onto them from a high place, such as a box sliding off a warehouse shelf or a pallet slipping off a forklift’s forks. It also includes various other incidents that involves moving objects colliding with objects, such as crushing and pinching accidents, job-related car crashes, friction burns, and structural collapses.
Slipping and tripping accidents may sound self-explanatory at first, but it covers a lot more than just your standard slip or trip and fall over an unmarked spill or an unsecured electrical cord. For example, if someone loses their footing while working on a roof and ends up falling to the ground from height, their ensuing injuries would almost certainly serve as valid grounds for a workers’ comp claim.
Finally, “exposure” in this context can mean anything from electrocution accidents and burns caused by fires and explosions to working near toxic chemicals without proper protection and—especially relevant in recent years—contraction of diseases like COVID-19 while working. Working closely with a skilled Lima attorney can be key to building a strong workers’ comp claim that is tailored to the specific circumstances that led to your injury and to ensuring you obtain the benefits you need.
Workers’ Compensation and the Right to Sue
Before laws that protected injured workers existed, the only option a hurt employee had for pursuing financial relief was to sue their employer in court. Now, employees can seek workers’ compensation when they are injured during the course of their employment without having to file a formal lawsuit.
In brief, this is possible because modern workers’ compensation laws—including the ones that went into effect in Ohio following the signing of the Workmen’s Compensation Act in 1911—are designed to be a “no-fault” system which provides benefits to both employees and employers. In exchange for providing certain benefits to employees who get hurt or sick on the job no matter who was or was not to blame for the incident which caused that harm, employers have “immunity” from direct civil liability for workplace accidents and illnesses.
Of course, the flip side of this is that employers have no choice but to pay for certain expenses out of their own pocket after a worker of theirs suffers an injury or illness in the course of performing job-related tasks, and employees cannot sue their employers over such injuries or illnesses even if they were caused entirely by that employer’s negligent or wrongful act. However, you may be able to file suit against other people whose negligence contributed to causing your workplace accident while also seeking benefits through workers’ comp, as a Lima workers’ compensation attorney can explain in more detail.
Can Comparative Fault Affect Workers’ Comp Benefits?
As discussed above, workers are not required to show fault in most workers’ compensation cases. In fact, even if the injured employee is at fault for their injury, they could still receive workers’ compensation benefits. However, while “comparative fault” along these lines will not always prevent you from getting workers’ comp benefits, that does not mean being found partly to blame for causing your own workplace accident cannot have any effect at all on an ensuing workers’ comp claim.
Fortunately, that effect will not be the same one that comparative fault would have on a standard personal injury claim. After something like a car crash, any amount of fault you are found to hold for causing your own injuries could be held against you as a proportional reduction from the value of your final damage award. On top of that, if you hold more than 50 percent of the total fault for your injury, you are ineligible to get any civil compensation whatsoever for losses stemming from that injury.
Conversely, workers’ comp claims do not take “percentages of fault” into consideration—not on your end of things, and not on your employer’s end either. If you are eligible for workers’ comp benefits based on the circumstances leading up to your injury or illness, you can seek the full amount of benefits which state law entitles you to receive even if you are partially at fault for causing your own injury through your own negligence.
That said, there are a few types of employee misconduct which may disqualify you from seeking any workers’ comp benefits at all if that misconduct was the main reason you got hurt or sick on the job, including but not restricted to the following:
- “Horseplay,” fighting, or similar conduct involving and/or endangering other employees,
- Being drunk or high on the job
- Intentionally injuring yourself, with very limited for scenarios involving extreme work-related stress, and
- Any action which directly violates a “company standard”—for example, a basic safety rule on a worksite—which was both widely known and widely followed by employees prior to the accident
A workers’ comp lawyer in Lima can discuss whether your specific situation could give rise to a strong claim during a free initial consultation.
Injured Employee Claim Process in Lima
Nearly every employee in Ohio is covered by one of the workers’ compensation policies overseen by the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC). When employees are covered by one of these policies, they give up their right to sue their employer for compensation.
If they become injured or ill on the job, workers seeking compensation must submit a report to their employer and the BWC. In Ohio, employees have one year from the date of the incident to file their claim.
Once a report is submitted, the BWC might request more information related to the injury such as medical records.
Either way, the BWC would likely respond to the claim within 28 days of filing. If the claim is denied, workers may appeal the decision within 14 days.
Under limited circumstances, an employee may not be covered under a policy. If an employee is not covered, they could potentially sue in court to get additional compensation.
A skilled Lima workers’ compensation attorney could help an injured worker file with the BWC and guide them through this complex legal process.
Workers’ Compensation Coverage
Workers’ compensation could cover medical costs for doctor appointments and treatment, as well as lost wages as long as the employee misses seven or more day on the job. Furthermore, there are three specific categories of disability that workers’ comp may account for.
Each type of disability has separate rules for recovery, and designated disabilities may be reviewed and changed by the BWC. A workers’ compensation lawyer in Lima could offer further clarification about what particular types of benefits an individual worker may be eligible to receive.
First, permanent partial disability is when the worker is still able to work, but the injury affects their ability to function. Workers may seek compensation based on a percentage of their wage for a certain number of weeks.
Second, temporary total disability is when an injury renders the employee unable to work for a finite amount of time. The final category is permanent total disability, which is when an injury disables an employee permanently from holding a paying job, such as amputation or loss of eyesight.
How Are Disability Benefits Calculated?
The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation provides a chart of compensation rates for the three types of disability benefits listed above that covers every working year from 2011 up to 2025. However, that chart can be a little hard to interpret if you are not familiar with workers’ comp claims, so here is a brief overview of the basics.
As a starting point, all workers’ comp claimants who qualify to receive temporary total disability (TTD) benefits will have those benefits valued at 72 percent of the average weekly wage they received prior to getting hurt. This initial rate lasts for the first 12 weeks of disability, after which point the rate decreases to two-thirds of the claimant’s average pre-injury weekly wage, where it will stay until the claimant reaches “maximum medical improvement” (MMI) as determined by their doctors.
For claimants in 2025, TTD benefits must be valued at a minimum of $410.33 per week, or a minimum of $615.50 if you are participating in an approved “Living Maintenance” (LM) rehabilitation plan. Furthermore, they are capped at a maximum of $1,231 per week, or at $820.67 if you are also receiving Social Security benefits in addition to your workers’ comp benefits. These minimums and caps are based around the average weekly wage across all workers in Ohio, and they are typically increased by 2.5 percent each year as a cost of living adjustment (COLA).
The same basic rate and maximum caps apply to permanent total disability (PTD) benefits: two-thirds of the claimant’s average pre-injury weekly wage, up to a maximum of $1,231 or $820.97 with Social Security disability benefits. However, the minimum is $615.50 here unless your average pre-injury weekly wage was less than that amount, in which case your PTD benefits would be at 100 percent of that weekly wage.
Finally, permanent partial disability benefits are capped at $410.33 per week for claimants in 2025. It is also possible to receive wage loss (WL) benefits to make up for a decline in earnings stemming from a job or career change forced by a workplace injury, valued at two-thirds of the difference between pre-injury wage and current wage up to a maximum of $1,231 per week. Working with a Lima workers’ compensation lawyer is the best way to understand your options.
What to Do If a Workers’ Comp Claim Is Denied
If your initial claim for workers’ comp benefits is rejected by your employer’s insurance provider, it is important not to panic, and especially important not to assume your claim is dead in the water. To start with, a lot of early claim denials are caused solely by small typos in your paperwork or a lack of important information like up-to-date medical records, and a skilled Lima workers’ comp lawyer can help you fix errors and submit additional documentation to resolve those kinds of issues.
However, if your employer or their insurer is contesting any part of your claim because they do not believe you qualify for some or any of the benefits you are seeking, you may need to file a formal appeal. The first step in that process is appealing your claim to a district hearing officer (DHO) within the Industrial Commission of Ohio, who will schedule a hearing no more than 45 days after receiving the appeal.
If the DHO also denies your claim, you have 14 days after receiving that denial to continue the appeal to a staff hearing officer (SHO), whose hearing will be more in-depth and give you an opportunity to present evidence and testimony to support your claim. If this hearing also goes against you, you have 14 days again to progress your claim to the Commission itself, which gets to choose which cases it actually hears.
If this internal appeals process does not work out for you, you may be able to continue your appeal through the Ohio state court system. However, this can be an expensive and immensely complex path to tread, so having support from legal counsel will be all but essential to getting a favorable result.
How a Lima Workers’ Compensation Attorney Could Help
Being injured on the job can be a serious hassle. Aside from the physical and mental pain, you might also be facing financial pressures out of work.
During this challenging time, it may be in your best interest to consult with a Lima workers’ compensation lawyer who could help review your situation and discover ways you could move forward. Call today to get started on your case.
